Belgium
We stayed in Belgium for 9 nights in total, as a brief overview:
The weather was cold, wet and grey
The Porta Potti wasn't that bad
The van had its first malfunction
Waffles are awesome
First stop on our visit to Belgium was Ypres. We were very impressed with this town, we managed to find a free park up on the edge of town (walking in took us less than 10 mins), and the town itself seemed very posh, expensive designer shops, fancy restaurants and impressive buildings. We felt right at home...
Ypres is famous for its WW1 history, the surrounding areas have many cemeteries and memorials from all the battles and the soldiers who lost their lives there. Probably the most famous landmark being the Menin Gate. We hadn't planned it but our first night in Ypres was Remembrance Sunday, so we were very lucky to experience the Last Post Ceremony whilst there. I would highly recommend seeing this to everyone, it is held every evening at 20:00.
The Menin Gate - Ypres
Our next adventure around Ypres was by bike, we woke to a very cold and very foggy morning, we were going to visit a German trench (Bayernwald), so the foggy scenery somehow made everything feel a bit more atmospheric. First thing to note was how easy it was to get around by bike in Belgium. Along all the (big) roads we travelled on there was a bike lane to the side of it, this was very welcoming.
The German trench was interesting to see and luckily for us some of the information boards were in English, Google Translate to the rescue on the other boards. You had to book a time slot to visit them, we had the whole place to ourselves - the perks of visiting in November.
From here we decided to make the most of the dry weather and amazing cycle routes to visit a few of the nearby cemeteries. They were all kept immaculately, very moving to see all the graves, I had seen many photos and videos of the cemeteries before, but nothing compares to actually being there, and again, the fog made the whole experience more atmospheric.
On the way back we treated ourselves to our first "meal" out, and also the first of what would become a daily treat... A Belgian Waffle.
Next stop, Brussels. Our park up for the capital was in a small town called Grimbergen. Cycling distance from the centre, or 45 minutes by bus, which stopped just outside the parking area. Even nicer for us, an amazing Pizza restaurant was just opposite! We wanted to "give something back" to the local community so a Pizza was a good option... That's our story anyway.
We planned to spend two days in Brussels, the first day we travelled in by bike and explored the areas around the centre: A food market (which happened once a week on the day we went and happened to do amazing fresh Belgian Waffles!), the European Parliament and the Triumphal Arch. On the long way around the centre, we also saw the large Atomium.
The second day we went in by bus from right outside the parking area to the main North station of Brussels. Brussels had some amazing architecture to offer as well as what felt like a few billion tourists. When away from the busy shopping streets, or the incredibly popular Manneken Pis statue the streets were much more welcoming and less crowded.
From Brussels we went to Ghent. Where we managed to find a lovely (rainy) park to do a 5k run in, a proper park up with a grey water drain so we could use the shower, and the place where the van decided to give us something to fix.
The park was called Gentbrugse Meersen, it was not far away from where our free park up was. Although very wet, the run went well, we got back to the van and the plan was to drive the short distance down the road to the paid park up area to be able to use the facilities, what could possibly go wrong... We made it to the paid motorhome area, positioned ourselves over the drain, blocking the fresh water fill up and then tried to have a shower. First problem, no gas. Thinking we'd just forgotten to flick the switch on inside the van, I went to turn it on, still no gas. Upon further investigation I noticed the van starter battery voltage was dropping, and when checking the DC-DC battery charger was still running, so the charger thought the engine was still running, which in turn must be cutting off the gas as the solenoid thought the van engine was on so was cutting the gas flow. We needed to fix this fast as running the starter battery down would mean the van wouldn't start! Having managed to get the charger to stop running and bypassing the solenoid we managed to get the gas working and save the starter battery - finally we could have a shower and move away from the drain area, having blocked it for over an hour already.
Once showered we parked up in the now last space available and went about trying to get the charger working correctly again, being able to charge the batteries while driving is vital, especially with the sun not providing much solar power at this time of year. Fixing it involved removing half of the bed, taking apart the charger and doing a hard reset on it, finally after another hour or so it was working correctly - I was so thankful that I packed all those heavy tools for just this type of occasion. So, what was supposed to be a nice simple day turned into a stressful one!
The following day we went into the centre of Ghent, making use of the tram which stopped right next to our park up. Ghent was very pretty, even in the rain showers. We dodged some of the showers by heading into the Churches and Cathedrals and when it cleared up, we found the Graffiti Street which was full of brightly painted creations including Disney and Pokémon. We decided to brave the walk back instead of taking the tram, and as a reward it hailed and rain almost constantly all the way back to the van.
Our final stop in Belgium was Antwerp. We used the Park4Night app to find a free park up on the outskirts of town, the bike ride into the centre was only about 20 minutes so not far at all. Antwerp is famous for its diamonds which seemed to be the first place we went to, it just happened to be on the way to the train station which Marta wanted to see... We wandered through the town taking in the sites and made our way to a small museum in an old castle by the docks, which went into the history of the city and how it became the port for Europe.
The next day was our last in Belgium, after leaving Antwerp we travelled south to a small town called Bornem which is where the Dodentocht (Death March) takes place every year, I was here back in 2007 to complete the 100km walk in less than 24 hours, I was happy to just visit this time, without doing the 100km!
We headed north passed Antwerp again and then made it just over the Dutch border and found a park up outside a motorhome showroom.